The Junipers of Lake Valley 



299 



frequently, among junipers which grow on the exposed moun- 

 tain ridges. The double tree might in reality be a single one 

 which forked very early in life because of the loss of its lead- 

 ing shoot; or it might be two trees which, germinating near 

 each other, grew at length large enough to touch and then to 

 mingle into one common trunk. But why should this be more 

 common among these junipers than among the yellow pines 

 and tamaracks about them ? Here surely is an interesting prob- 

 lem for some one to solve. 



Here then was a group of some hundreds of these trees scat- 

 tered about among the pines of the valley floor between My- 

 ers' station and the forest-ranger's cabin some two miles to the 

 south. They seemed moreover to be strictly confined to this 

 area. None were found either to the north or to the south of 

 it. Right through the center of it runs the automobile road to 

 Luther's Pass and Markleeville. Hundreds of campers and 

 tourists pass through it every season. Yet it seems never to 

 have come to the notice of our botanists. Indeed Dr. W. L. 

 Jepson tells me that he has never known of such a group of 

 these trees, although he has known of exceptional individuals 

 of their stature and habit.f 



The special characters of this group are due no doubt to the 

 richer soil in which they grow, and to the protection against 

 storms afforded both by the high ridges east and west of them 

 and by the other forest trees growing about them. Since simi- 

 lar conditions are by no means uncommon in the Sierra at this 

 altitude, it seems altogether likely that such groups might be 

 found elsewhere, if people were only on the lookout for them.$ 

 I hope that members of the Sierra Qub and other persons in- 

 terested in such things will, on their summer rambles, keep this 

 matter in mind, and especially that they will not fail to report 

 their findings. 



The fact that a number of these trees had recently been cut 

 to furnish posts for some miles of fencing on the road to Tal- 

 lac, led me to take up the question of their age. The trees 



t In his monumental Silva of California (1910) the only notice of this excep- 

 tional type is the following sentence: "In protected localities they present regular 

 figures forty to sixty-five feet high, and sometimes six or seven feet in diameter." 



% Since writing the above I have learned of the existence of a somewhat similar 

 group on the South Yuba, between Cisco and the Summit. 



